For a review of our methodology, please see the References and Resources section below.

Here’s the key to the figures we’re examining:

WSP = Win Shares Produced: the total of major league Win Shares produced that season by all players credited to the organization Lg. WSP = League Win Shares Produced: the percentage of the league total of WSP credited to the organizationMLB WSP = Major league baseball Win Shares Produced: the percentage of the MLB-wide total of WSP credited to the organizationW = Wins: the actual win total of the team that seasonLg. W = League Wins: the percentage of the league win total won by the teamW% – WSP% = League Wins minus League Win Shares Produced: a measure of how much better or worse a team actually performed than the league-wide value produced by its organization Avg WSP = Average Win Shares Produced: the average WSP of the teams in a given division or league%MLB Avg = Percentage of the major league baseball average: how the average WSP for a given division or league compares with the overall major league average

Since their inception in 1969, the Kansas City Royals had been widely admired as a model major league franchise. Great trades by their first GM, Cedric Tallis, built the team into a nearlyinstantcontender, and then the organization constructed a strong farm system that sustained it as a consistently competitive team through the 1980s. Tallis passed the GM baton to Joe Burke, who handed it off to John Schuerholz, who in turn was succeeded by Herk Robinson, but through it all the tone of solid, practical competence remained.

However, one key element about the 1994 Royals was different from the past: During the previous off-season they’d been sold by the estate of recently deceased founding owner Ewing Kauffman. Under the new ownership of David Glass, the franchise would soon decline, and has achieved a winning record just once since 1994.

The Cleveland Indians had been moribund in the early 1990s, but by 1995 their resurrection was dazzling. Owner Richard Jacobs had put up 52% of the funding for a brand-new showplace ballpark which was filled with nearly 40,000 fans per game, and the GM Jacobs had hired in late 1991, John Hart, had quickly assembled a tremendous ball club.

Key trade acquisitions were pitcher John Smoltz and first baseman Fred McGriff, and the team’s greatest star had been signed as a free agent: the astounding Greg Maddux, winning his fourth consecutive Cy Young Award.

For the Expos, 1995 was a year of extraordinary frustration. They’d posted the best record in the major leagues in 1994, only to have that season cut short by the work stoppage. In ’95, they lost star right fielder Larry Walker to free agency, payroll-shedding trades cost them center fielder Marquis Grissom and pitchers Ken Hill and John Wetteland, and the Expos finished last in their division despite being second-best in the majors in WSP.

Over the 1990s the Blue Jays’ organization had emerged as a talent-development powerhouse, and in 1997 for the first time Toronto led the American League in WSP. Yet on the field, following its back-to-back World Series championships of 1992-93, the team had collapsed: 1997 was its fourth consecutive losing season.

The Blue Jays weren’t cash-strapped. The Skydome was still filled with more than 30,000 per game in the mid-1990s, and so they hadn’t been unduly troubled by free agent defections. Pitchers Jimmy Key (Orioles) and Todd Stottlemyre (Cardinals) were the only ones of note.

Another team grinding its teeth in 1997 was the Pirates. Their farm system had been excellent for many years, but even when they were winning three straight division flags in 1990-92, their attendance had never risen above the middle of the pack. Consequently when their young stars opted for free agency, the Pirates were unable to keep them in the fold, and Cam Bonifay, who’d taken over as GM in mid-1993, demonstrated little capacity to pull off clever trades or bargain pickups. Thus the ’97 Pirates led the NL Central in WSP by a wide margin, but managed just a 79-83 record (for which Bonifay was incomprehensibly named Executive of the Year by The Sporting News).

The situation with the Florida Marlins could hardly have been in starker contrast. In just their fifth season of existence, the Marlins hadn’t had time to reap the full benefits of a farm system, though they had done well in talent development and had already brought catcher Charles Johnson, shortstop Edgar Renteria and pitcher Livan Hernandez to the majors.

The WSP gap between the leagues

The American League average team’s WSP was higher than that of the National League every season in the mid-1990s. Largely this was a function of the NL’s 1993 expansion teams, the Marlins and Rockies, driving down the NL average. But even removing the Marlins and Rockies from the analysis, the average AL team still outproduced the average NL team in 1997 by 254 to 244. This margin wasn’t large, but the AL gained in this regard in every season from 1994 through 1997.

Clearly, the distinct superiority the National League had held beginning in the early 1950s was finally erased in the mid-1990s. The proper characterization of the WSP relationship between the leagues in the 1990s was, at last, parity.

Methodology

First, we identify every player in the major leagues each season with at least five career Win Shares. Then we identify which major league organization was responsible for originally signing and developing that player (or perhaps not originally signing him, but clearly being the organization most responsible for developing him). Finally, we credit every season’s production of major league Win Shares by that player to that organization, regardless of whether he actually played that season for that organization.

Sometimes it’s impossible to assign a player to one organization. Lots of players were signed by one team, but then acquired by another organization while still young minor leaguers. For such players, we assign half-credit to each of the two organizations (and in a few cases, we assign one-third-credit to each of three organizations).

Through the 1990s, a handful of players weren’t the products of any major league team’s farm system, having been purchased from independent teams in the Mexican League, and now for the first time, the Japanese League as well. The Win Shares of such players aren’t counted in this analysis.

Steve Treder has been a co-author of every Hardball Times Annual publication since its inception in 2004. His work has also been featured in Nine, The National Pastime, and other publications. He has frequently been a presenter at baseball forums such as the SABR National Convention, the Nine Spring Training Conference, and the Cooperstown Symposium. When Steve grows up, he hopes to play center field for the San Francisco Giants.